What can I say, ‘Please sir, can I have some more’ is my catchphrase and battle cry in any life situation. Most heavily used, of course, when involving cheese fries or Tom Hiddleston videos on Youtube. I’ve always wanted to shoot a story inspired by some of the best-known underdogs of literature and cinema, namely Oliver Twist and Shoshanna Dreyfuss of Inglorious Basterds, not only for their ballsy personalities but the costumes – granted, Shoshanna is only complete with actress Melanie Laurent’s gait and pout. The 1840’s fashion is as rigid as uniform-ridden 1940’s, but the characters wear simplified, improvised versions of trends of the respective eras: layered jackets instead of a Victorian 3-piece suit, or a worker’s shirt with woollen culottes instead of a button-down dress. Alas, here’s my interpretation, with current-season pieces from Farfetch and an ever-so-slightly more ballsy attitude to go with it.

Hands up, if you too took a pair of blunt scissors to your jeans in middle school, cut a slit up the sides and haphazardly stitched floral/plaid(/corduroy!?) fabric to make flares. We used to call it morning glory jeans – my mother used to call it WHY IS THE SEWING MACHINE BROKEN. Fast forward a few years, skinny jeans dominate the denim world, and I guarantee you took the same blunt scissors and ripped up holes up and down the legs of a victim pair. Your mother may have tried sewing them up at one point too.

What’s clear is that these are two denim styles that punctuate my youth, and still reign a hefty side of my closet. I must own a billion iterations of the ‘skinny jean’ and one too many stripper-heels now to make some of the zillion flares I own work. Point is, years later, they still work – as attempted in these looks I’ve been abusing this season – in collaboration with Paige Denim at Selfridges, which has allowed me to glorify the two staple jeans of the last 15 years of my life in a wee digitorial that I had such fun putting together with my team.

Hello, I’m here to fix your boiler…

I am a strong believer that when it comes to cities, especially of those ‘home’ variety for individuals who – like me – have confusing heritage, it’s all about spicing things up in the bedroom, so to speak. And for this I wholeheartedly recommend roleplaying: sexy nurse, keen repairman, bored prison guard… whatever floats your boat (enthusiastic Pokémon trainer for me), but the trick is to live, experience and interact with your city from a slightly different perspective, different lifestyle. Rent an inexpensive car for a few days instead of taking public transport, wear a suit every day for no reason, shop like a local, walk like a tourist, book an Airbnb flat in a high-rise and wake up to sunrise on the 20th floor… Enjoy wider horizons but also encounter new limitations. Yes I’m aware this sounds like a page out of a self-help book, but I promise, IT’S SEXY WHEN YOU’RE DOING IT RIGHT. I’d like to think that this is how London and I keep a healthy relationship, even if I have to ask for a hall pass every now and again.

Seoul, for me, is one of those ‘home’ cities – despite never having lived there and a place I still consider an exciting, unmapped territory, I can’t help that on the rare occasion I do visit I slink into an oddly familiar routine that one would typically expect from a local. Now, this isn’t to say that I know my way around the back streets of Gangnam or the best way to haggle over a kilo of spinach with the lady in the market (why does one need kilo of spinach anyway), but it is the inevitable nature of: I seem to blend in with my own people? Last April, brought over by work, I was determined to spice it up – and instead of going straight to one of my relatives, booked two nights at the Conrad hotel on Yeuido island – the city’s business and banking district and also home to the most spectacular cherry blossom festival.

The hotel, while stunning in design and efficient in service, is undeniably oriented towards business purposes, which is exactly what I’d wanted. I woke up early and mingled with the suited men at breakfast, read the cartoon page off the International New York Times with my glasses perched low on my nose, and abused the concierge app to book wake-up calls but snoozed through the morning. In the afternoon, I took walks through the cherry blossom festival and bought street food, which I smuggled back into my room. And on the last day, I took a friend and snuck into a local public school’s sports field and we spent the afternoon on the bleachers imagining life as a Korean high-schooler. It was love rekindled, and so far away from the Seoul that I got too easily accustomed to. Next time, I’m booking a helicopter ride and borrowing a dog. Now tell me that’s not some power couple’s therapy.

When the going gets hot

I must be one of those folk for whom the season of summer is a general questionmark for their closets wherein rumpled sweaters form burrowed eyebrows along the top shelf and winter coats and beachwear generally hang side-by-side in this arrangement: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯? because the other day it was cold as balls – excuse ze language – and today I am wearing a singlet that may also be translucent. At this point I am just happy that we decided to place the office desks a few feet away from the windows facing the street, because this half-naked Asian lady violently fanning Vogue inserts is now shaking to the beat of Ciara’s Goodies. Hey wait, it actually might be a good time to move towards the window, given that I’m not really getting any work done. They throw money when you strip, right?

Here’s a few summer get-ups, mostly consisting basics from Gap. Let me know if I’m doing it right, from a scale of the-cold-never-bothered-me-anyway to she-had-dumps-like-a-truck-truck. Was never too great at maths, if you couldn’t tell.

I did receive a fair bit of warning before heading to the Maldives: that the islands will take my heart and drown it deep, deep down the Indian Ocean; that I will experience a kind of feeling not so dissimilar to love, or absolute bewilderment. Like the first time I tried Chipotle? I asked, and they all said EVEN BETTER. So I packed high hopes, along with six bikinis, because another someone said most of my time will be spent chasing Pixar characters under water. I assumed they meant Nemo but packed more racy numbers just in case they actually meant Mr Incredible.

Conrad Maldives is 30-minute seaplane flight from capital Malé down into the bluest bit of the globe – by atlas standards a practically invisible clutter of tiny islands located south of Sri Lanka, with a probability of accidental discovery from zero to drunk-and-randomly-clicking-around-Google-Earth-satellite-view. As the seaplane expertly skimmed down onto the glassy sea, I couldn’t help but feel like a bond girl, seeking refuge on a glamorous island with the aid of an international spy – nevermind the ill-digested plane food and a muffin top.

I had never seen such unadulterated scenery, such literal exhibition of colours, and immediately took up on bumping up adjectives to superlatives: bluest sea/whitest sand/bestest trip EVER…and so on. Indeed just like my first time at Chipotle. And just as I ran out of words starting with ‘A’ to describe the view over a coconutty welcome drink, a smiley Maldivian in white beckoned towards our water villas. Modern and minimalist in style, constructed of de-saturated sea wood, and pulled together by the occasional splash of blue furnishing, mine was one of 71 water villas on the island. Although, the whereabouts of the other 61 was a mystery I never managed to solve.

I felt right at home, if home was a house above crystal clear water and a glass globe horizon for a view. This feeling of privacy was something I’d never known I cherished in hotels/resorts, I suppose more so that I was to spend the next few days alone, wrestling with a tripod and remote for photos.

As the sea lapped at the beams of the villa and the outdoor Jacuzzi gurgled every so often to compete, I was already unbuttoning my heart to give to the sea at the Conrad Maldives. And I’d soon learn that no amount of snorkelling or diving I’d be able to retrieve it.

Stick around for part 2, and once again a happy 10th birthday to Ithaa, Conrad Maldives’ undersea restaurant – more on this later.

Park & Cube was a guest of Conrad Maldives, all views and opinions are my own.